Disease processes, e.g., tumors, inflammation of lymph nodes, and plaque build-up in arteries, often afflict the human body. As one specific example, atherosclerotic plaque is known to build-up on the walls of arteries in the human body. Such plaque build-up restricts circulation and often causes cardiovascular problems, especially when the build-up occurs in coronary arteries. Accordingly, it is desirable to detect plaque build-up and remove or otherwise reduce such plaque build-up.
To treat such disease, it often is necessary to insert a medical device into the body, and to guide the medical device to the diseased site. Once the medical device is adjacent the diseased site the medical device typically is used to treat the diseased area.
Often a guide wire is used to help guide other treatment devices to this area. A guide wire typically is required to properly position a catheter in the artery. The guide wire is advanced through the artery and region of plaque build-up so that it forms a path through the artery and plaque build-up. The catheter or other device such as a balloon or rotational atherectomy device is then guided through the artery using the guide wire.
Known guide wires implement laser energy to remove plaque build up on artery walls for totally occluded arteries. One known catheter includes a laser source and a guide wire body. The guide wire body has a first end and a second end, or head, and several optical fibers extend between the first end and the second end. The laser source is coupled to each of the optical fibers adjacent the catheter body first end and is configured to transmit laser energy simultaneously through the optical fibers.
To remove arterial plaque, for example, the guide wire body is positioned in the artery so that the second end of the guide wire body is adjacent a region of plaque build-up. The laser source is then energized so that laser energy travels through each of the optical fibers and substantially photoablates the plaque adjacent the second end of the catheter body. The guide wire body is then advanced through the region to photoablate the plaque in such region.
It often is not feasible to insert known guide wires into an artery. For example, known guide wires typically cannot be extended through totally occluded arteries. Particularly, known guide wires are configured to be extended through paths already existing in a partially occluded artery. If such paths do not exist, e.g., if the artery is totally occluded, the guide wire may not be able to be advanced.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a guide wire configured to be advanced through a totally occluded artery. It also would be desirable for such guide wire to be configured to provide imaging capability as well as the ability to open a small channel accurately through a totally occluded passage way.